Weirdly disappointed and frustrated by this thread on ILX. Partly at myself – my arguments won’t cohere and so I’m just batting replies around – but partly at something I’ve noticed when talking about certain records. The Darkness, Andrew WK, ARE Weapons, Kevin Rowland’s My Beauty, Daft Punk’s Discovery – these records seem to inspire a particular vehemence, an especially angry heat. And what they also have in common is that they refuse to make it clear how you (the listener) should take them. We’re all used to “how authentic are they?” as a bogus litmus test of musical worth (though if it works for you, great!). “How serious are they?” is I think an even more interesting question but it really seems to get some people’s goat. Maybe I just love the feeling I might be being made a fool of – when you’ve listened to so much music it’s one of the few risks left.